South Piedmont Community College safety and security coordinator Bengie Mullis directs a motorist into a parking space in the auxiliary parking lot created on the L.L. Polk Campus Thursday morning.


 

 

POLKTON -- South Piedmont Community College (SPCC) was forced to add a new
temporary parking lot on its L.L. Polk Campus because of the number of students enrolled in classes there this fall.

The school hopes the 60 new parking spaces will eliminate the traffic jams and alleviate the trouble that students were having finding parking since fall classes began Monday, Aug. 16.


According to William Truett, SPCC?s director of Facility and Property Services, 16 tons of gravel was trucked in to create an entrance/exit for the auxiliary lot. The cement curb had to be broken up and hauled off to allow for the opening. The lot, which for now is grass, extends west from the current gravel lot between the Martin Technology Complex and U.S. Highway 74. Truett said that if, as expected, the parking lot needs to become a permanent fixture, 300 tons of gravel will be needed
for the entire lot.


SPCC?s fall enrollment for curriculum students has already exceeded last year?s final fall total, and that does not include more than two dozen classes that are still enrolling. Vice President of Finance and Administrative Services John De Vitto said the surge in Polkton could be attributed to some people taking more classes per semester, and more classes being offered there than in the recent past. Numbers from Aug. 13, the day registration ended for most classes, show a combination of full- and part-time students equivalent to 79 more full-time students? on both campuses?than during Fall Semester 2009.


The unexpected traffic jams forced members of the maintenance staff on the L.L. Polk Campus to spend considerable parts of each day directing traffic during the first week of class. The problem is expected to get worse once Anson County Early College students arrive Monday, Aug. 23.

In Monroe, plans were in place for auxiliary parking in the grass, but so far it has not been needed and there appears to be just enough parking in the paved lot. Union County Early College has already begun, so it will cause no additional influx there.